Mozilla Updates Firefox, Thunderbird

The folks at Mozilla have released new versions of their Firefox Web browser, version 3.6.13, and their Thunderbird E-mail client, version 3.1.7, for all platforms: Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux.

The new version of Firefox fixes 11 security vulnerabilities, 9 of which are rated Critical.  It also includes several other bug fixes; more detail is in the Release Notes.

The new version of Thunderbird fixes three security flaws, all rated Critical.  It also incorporates improvements in the handling of large mail folders, and in the handling of local copies of IMAP mail.  See the Release Notes for more information.

You can get the new version of either package by using the built-in update mechanism (Help / Check for Updates), or you can get complete installation packages for all platforms, in a variety of languages, from the Firefox download page, or the Thunderbird download page.

Microsoft Black Tuesday Preview, December 2010

Today, in keeping with its usual schedule, Microsoft released its Security Bulletin Advanced Notification for December, giving a preview of the security patches it intends to release next Tuesday, December 14.     This month will bring a holiday helping  of 17 patches; two of these have a maximum severity rating of Critical, fourteen are rated Important, and one Moderate.   There are  Critical updates for all supported versions of Windows.   There are also two Important patches for Microsoft Office, and one each for Works 9 and SharePoint Server.  There is one Moderate patch for Exchange Server. The following table gives the Windows patch breakdown by version and severity.

Windows Version	Critical	Important	Moderate
Windows XP+SP3	1	6	—
Windows Vista	2	6	—
Windows Server 2003	1	7	—
Windows Server 2008	2	7	—
Windows 7	2	5	—
Windows Server 2008 R2	2	7	—
Microsoft Office	–	2	–

Microsoft says that, of the 17 bulletins, 8 will definitely require a system reboot, and the rest may or may not, depending on the configuration of your system.

As always, this information is subject to change between now and the actual release of the security bulletins on Tuesday.  I will post an updated summary after the release is made.

Apple Patches QuickTime for Windows

Apple has released a new version of its QuickTime media player, version 7.6.9, for Windows.  This update fixes 15 different security vulnerabilities, most of them serious.   Further information on the items fixed is available here.  The new version is available for download here.

Because of its security content, I recommend that you install this update as soon as you conveniently can.